sent: "My five-year old students, are learning to read. Yesterday one of them pointed at a picture in a zoo book and said, "Look at this! It's a frickin' elephant!" I took a deep breath, then asked..."What did you call it?"

"It's a frickin' elephant! It says so on the picture!" And so it does...
" A f r i c a n Elephant " Hooked on phonics! Isn't it wonderful?"

1. He does not have a 'BEER GUT' - He has developed a 'LIQUID GRAIN STORAGE FACILITY.'

2. He does not 'GET LOST ALL THE TIME' - He 'INVESTIGATES ALTERNATIVE DESTINATIONS.'

3. He does not act like a 'TOTAL ASS' - He develops a case of 'RECTAL-CRANIAL INVERSION.'

These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words, not to mention waving middle fingers.

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison," and he said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about." - Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." - Abraham Lincoln

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is
one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." - Robert Redford

He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

A man lost in the woods...
... the words of a dream i did not know i had dreamed...
...
I was a wanderer who feels the solace of his native land under his feet again and moving in his blood...
Poem: click to enlarge.

I dream of you
walking at night along the streams of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs of birds opening around you as you walk...

i found this in my hand,

it moved me so

so many years ago...

The Country Of Marriage

I.

I dream of you walking at night along the streams of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.

II.
This comes after silence. Was it something I said
that bound me to you, some mere promise
or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
like the earth's empowering brew rising
in root and branch, the words of a dream of you
I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
who feels the solace of his native land
under his feet again and moving in his blood.
I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
that lay before me, but only the level ground.

III.
Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.

The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.
IV.

How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was,
for to approach you I have given up the light
and all directions. I come to you
lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.
V.
Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don't know what its limits are--
that puts us in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen tine and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.

VI.

What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore

to drink our fill, and sleep, while it

flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning

to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,

willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.

VII.

I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,

containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.

I give you the life I have let live for the love of you:

a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,

the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life

that we have planted in the ground, as I

have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all

beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself

again and again, and satisfy--and this poem,

no more mine than any man's who has loved a woman.

another poem HERE
..."The Indian Serenade ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright....

Monday, September 26, 2011

in North Carolina: HERE excerpt:
"ELIZABETHTOWN - A Bladen County man is accused of breaking into a woman's home and raping her earlier this month, authorities said. Antwan Jamell Pearson, 22, of the 100 block of Merritt Drive in Elizabethtown, was charged Friday with first-degree rape, first-degree burglary, kidnapping, larceny and possessing stolen property. The incident happened in the early hours of Sept. 10.... The victim... said she had been sleeping when she was awakened by a loud noise, Hester said. As the woman tried to turn on a lamp near her bed, she heard a man's voice and was pushed back onto the bed, Hester said. The man raped her and then demanded her money, Hester said."

Home invsion rapist: Minneapolis: Exceprt: "...A married couple was returning home to an apartment in the 1700 block of Norfolk Avenue about 1 a.m. Aug. 26 when three men at the entrance approached them. One of the men displayed a handgun while the other two circled the couple. The man with the gun demanded their belongings.

After taking $8 from the husband, the men forced the couple into their apartment and searched for valuables. When they found nothing, two of the suspects took the husband to his vehicle and drove to a TCF Bank branch. He withdrew $500 in cash. While they were gone, the third suspect, identified as Carter in a photo lineup, forced the woman into a bedroom, where he raped her, the complaint said. She also was assaulted in a bathroom..." more here:

Death by Date Rape Drugs: story HERE.
Excerpt: "... Miami Beach cops are investigating the death of an aspiring model who suffered a fatal overdose of a date-rape drug hours after she left the apartment of notorious “King of All Pimps” Jason Itzler and his roomie...Revelations of the probe — and a private investigation by the family of the dead woman— come as Itzler, 44, is locked up in a Manhattan jail on unrelated charges of promoting prostitution and drug sales.
The woman, Julia Sumnicht, a 21-year-old Wisconsin college student, had been visiting Miami Beach, Fla., in March 2010 in hopes of breaking into the world of fashion modeling...."

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Three touchdown videos below--There was food galore, delicious cocktails, and points on the board. Willlie's Bar and Grille and the Irish Pub Down Under always please.

The first half was pretty much for K-State football fans.

Amber the wait(don't sue me)roid made a pot 'o coffee just for me.

To put my Baily's in.

And the sweet and beautiful Whitney Snyder was in the house, with a positively Phine young man we wager is her new Fiance....

Here is Bill Snyder showing off his ability of Bilocation...

bill snyder watches bill snyder

ksu coach bill snyder watching coach snyder on tv

a new look

Here are videos of the first three (heh) touchdowns
fromthe wildcats.
touchdown 1 shows the crowd from KSU in the florida stands:
click twice to view large on youtube

touchdown three with a funny airshovel pass:

And some pics from Willie's on Seth Childs near the Movie theatre.

unhappy miami hurricanes

Al Golden not pleased

"... You get a 12-point underdog’s neck under your boot at home, you’re supposed to stomp it. Not let it bite you right in your favoritism. Somebody forgot to tell Kansas State it was the bootee. So the dog Wildcats just reared right up and slapped Golden’s new program in the kisser. Rudely.

Need a Laugh?

an interesting place

Beauty Horse

Oh Well

I Love You Snorkel Cat

Sweetest Vultures

Migrating Geese Are Here

The Flint Hills of Kansa

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Mystical Things

Aung San Suu Kyi Released

Nonviolence

艾未未 Love the Future 爱未来

The Whole World is Watching

The Spirit In Which It Is Given

Well, there is a lot of pain and sorrow, sacrifice, rage and insanity, anxiety and confusion. And that is just the first 5 minutes.Please accept these stories and posts in the spirit in which they are given- to edify, to lift, to lighten, to validate, to weep.Because also: love and sacrifice, wisdom and justice, clarity and gifts. Sometimes it takes more than 5 minutes.Today I added K's story to this blog. She was a little 18 year old when she was deceived into a night of betrayal and crime; trafficked; bought and sold. it is profoundly disturbing that her betrayer was another woman, a wolf in sheep's clothing. hang in there, everybody. Everything is OK in the end. If it isn't ok, it's not the end.